Zoe is a 33 year old mum of a beautiful little girl, Ava Mae. She has been battling against a rare form of cancer, called a Synovial Sarcoma, for almost 5 years and is now left with no suitable treatment options available on the NHS.

Please help this kind, caring and selfless mother to to access treatment not currently available in this country and hopefully save her life. Thank you.

Zoe's History

Before 4th March 2010, Zoe and I were an ordinary couple, with a six month old baby girl, Ava. It was on that date that Zoe was given the devastating news that she had cancer.

Zoe, then only 29 years old, was diagnosed with a 10.5 cm Synovial Sarcoma in her left thigh. Surgery and radiotherapy followed, and sometime later came the fantastic news that the treatment had been a success. The entire tumour had been removed during a long and complicated surgery and following a scan, there was no evidence that the cancer had spread.

Sadly the good news did not last. On 23rd December 2010, following a routine x-ray, Zoe was told that her cancer had spread and that there were secondary tumours in both lungs. She was informed that her cancer was incurable.

In 2011, Zoe underwent 4 months of aggressive palliative chemotherapy, treatment that was designed to extend her life and alleviate symptoms. Although the results were initially promising, only a few months later new metastases had formed in her right lung, this despite undergoing two further surgeries to remove new areas of disease.

With hope beginning to fade we threw ourselves into trying to find another way and began researching alternative therapies that could delay the progression of her disease.

Zoe focused her attention on nutrition and supplementation. Zoe had by that time read dozens of books and had spent countless hours trawling through research articles and the web. She then applied what she had learned, significantly changing her diet and lifestyle.

In the meantime I turned my attention to researching therapies available away from the NHS, eventually deciding on Hyperthermia combined with Immune Stimulation and natural cytotoxic agents – treatments provided by Dr Axel Weber at Klinik Marinus am Stein in Brannenburg, Germany.

Through the generosity and support of our local community, Zoe's family and friends were able to raise the money required for Zoe to attend Klinik Marinus in October 2012. Zoe underwent three weeks of pain free, non-toxic treatment and she continued to enjoy good health, defying the expectations of her NHS Oncologist. Zoe subsequently returned to the Clinic in January 2013 and there received the fantastic news that the tumours in her right lung had shrunk and crucially that there were no new areas of disease.

Although the treatments Zoe received in Germany helped to slow the progression of her disease, they were never expected to be curative. In this way they are also palliative, as with the chemotherapy treatments Zoe had previously received on the NHS, however; with the crucial difference that they are non-toxic, without the severe side effects associated with traditional chemotherapy.

Chris, Zoe's partner

Right Now

Whilst Zoe continued to manage her disease with her home treatment protocol and periodic visits to the German Clinic, we carried on searching for a more permanent solution. New gene treatments are in development for her cancer in France and the USA, as well as immunotherapies that hold great promise for a cure.

What we need to achieve is to keep Zoe healthy long enough for the new treatments to become available in the UK. In the mean time we continued to search for ways to manage her disease and it was through our research that we read about High Dose Intravenous Vitamin C therapy.

Very recent published research has further strengthened the mounting evidence that supports the fact that High Dose Intravenously administered Vitamin C is both highly effective and safe for the treatment of cancer, both alone and in combination with conventional chemotherapy (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24867961) .

The reason why natural compounds such as Vitamin C are not yet used in main stream medicine is simply that natural compounds are not patentable. Medical innovation is entirely dependent on private industry for advancement due to the prohibitively high cost of taking a new medicine through the Clinical Trial and regulatory processes.

Without the benefit of a patent to protect the significant investment required, natural compounds will never be approved for use as a medicine for this reason. That is not to say that natural compounds are ineffective, quite the reverse is true and there is a great deal of scientific evidence that strongly supports the argument. The current situation is unfortunate as natural compounds typically have a far lower toxicity profile than pharmaceutical drugs, meaning that side effects are far milder or non-existent.

Taking Action

For the past four months Zoe has been having weekly Intravenous infusions of high doses of Vitamin C, in this time her pain and other symptoms have improved dramatically. For the reasons outlined above, High Dose Intravenous Vitamin C is unlikely to ever be adopted as a main stream treatment for cancer, therefore we have to meet the significant cost of this potentially lifesaving treatment ourselves.

Please help us to raise the money required to enable Zoe to continue to receive the treatment she so desperately needs.

Thank you for taking the time to read Zoe's Story.

Chris Taylor
Zoe's partner

Please help Zoe by giving generously.

Testimonials

With thanks to Mr Paul Gates for maintaining this webpage and Mrs Higginbotham, Manchester Road School, for undertaking a sponsored head shave!

Get in touch

If you would like to get in touch please email Zoe and Chris at zoesstory@gmail.com and they will get back to you as soon as possible.